


Worthless

by Virtawiiru



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Maria Hill is a powerfull person, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1890645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virtawiiru/pseuds/Virtawiiru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria Hill knew better than to believe in fairy tales. But she hadn't always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worthless

**Author's Note:**

> **OKAY SO THIS IS SOME DEEP STUFF, SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL READING IT.**
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> I have no idea where all this angst came from as the story began to enroll in my mind, but you know... sorry not sorry?

Maria Hill was a woman of power. It wasn't just about the fact, that she was the highest ranking SHIELD agent just under Fury.  
  
It was about so, so much more than that.  
  
Maria Hill was a woman who knew her limits, her strengths, how to command, how to handle every situation she ever witnessed or was in any way part of.  
  
People might have thought of her as one of Fury's little pets, his eye candy, who - not always - but so often did what was told, even if she did not like it.  
  
She fought against the ideas, the principles, and she spoke her mind when needed, even to Director Fury.  
  
But after all they had been through, all the years they had worked together - Maria Hill had seen that, in fact, he was good at his job. He indeed had morals. He had feelings, even if he hid them from the world and she could trust his crazy ideas.  
  
He was human.  
  
He needed her to question his directions, his actions, his choices, even if he didn't know it. He was a friend. He was a person she trusted her life with. Every day.  
  
People often saw her as a person, who thought the rules were everything. The rules were that small, thin red line that guided her through everything she saw, felt and encountered in her life, her work.  
  
She was a robot for the ones who didn't know her, and so few people knew her. She could count them with one hand. The people she could trust with her secrets, fears, her life - she could count them with the five fingers in her hand.  
  
She was a robot that did what needed to be done, made the hard choices, kept everything running smoothly wherever she was.  
  
She liked that.  
  
She liked that people thought her as some indestructible and ice cold robot. That made her work easier, but only some days.  
  
Even though some might think she was not worthy of the position she was in, people respected her.  
  
Most of them did anyways.  
  
They respected her, the choices she made, her command.  
  
It was a hard earned gift.  
  
A gift that took all her willpower to possess, to continue the fight against everything and everyone the world might come against. What she might encounter.  
  
A power, so many women before her - and after her, thought was impossible to gain. That it was unnatural for one, a woman, to have all that. To be a good soldier, to serve the world, to make those choices.  
  
But she had told them, showed them. She was someone who could do that.  
  
She hadn't chosen the path of her life to show the world that she, a woman, could do this job - that the world was round - that women are as equal to men, that women are capable of doing the things, making the hard choices, living with the darkness that ensues from those choices.  
  
None of that.  
  
She choose the path to show herself, that _she_ was worth it.  
  
Worth the things she had hoped to become, hoped to see, to feel.  
  
  
_  
  
She was worth her life, no matter what her father had done, had told her, made her believe. He had caused her to feel nothing, see nothing, be nothing.  
  
 _Be worthless._  
  
That word, worthless, was locked deep in her mind, in her spine. She had heard that dreadful word so many times. Too many times.  
  
She had _felt_ the word, the _true_ meaning of it. The word was a scar in her back. A shiver in her memory. A scar her father had made, had left in her. A faded, white scar that went across her spine. A mark her father had carved into her. A word that could be seen from far if she ever took her shirt off - if she ever let her shield down.  
  
A mark her father had left in her when she was just a little girl.  
  
That mark was made the second she had done something wrong - the second she was born. The second her mother had died, giving her the life she hoped she could share. But her mother couldn't. She couldn't be there for the few good things and sometimes Maria was glad that she wasn't there for the bad ones.  
  
The thing that made Maria so angry as she grew up, was the fact, that the night he had made the scars in her back he wasn't drunk. She couldn't store those things as a result of alcohol.  
  
He knew what he was doing.  
  
He knew exactly what was happening. He knew how he'd hurt his daughter. His wife's daughter. The product of their love. And yet he did it. Every day. Sometimes after a rough workday, sometimes it didn't even require that. Sometimes he was drunk, most of the time not, but Maria could never tell it when he was drunk. She could never blame all this on alcohol. He hid it too well.  
  
He did the scars in her body, in her mind.  
  
He was smart in a way. He made sure no one knew about the scars. He acted like he wasn't what he was, and after a while Maria gave up. No one would help her. She truly was worthless. Even for him. Her father.  
  
  
-  
  
Maria Hill knew better than to believe in fairy tales.  
  
But she hadn't always.  
  
When she was little she had reassured herself - things could be worse, they could and would get better. _"He used to be such a good, kind guy who loved life and his wife"_ , she had heard a neighbor say one day.  
  
But the thing she had learned the hard way, was that if you needed to reassure yourself about the things that one might do - good things or bad things someone else might think are even worse than they already are - you don't need to stop and let the person do those things. You don't need to fear, to feel that this isn't anything, that things aren't that bad. That things could be worse. And _especially_ when someone other than yourself says that, a school teacher, a social worker, other kids, your enemies, your family, your own father - they were wrong. They were all wrong. If you had to tell yourself that others had it worse, you were wrong.  
  
Maria Hill knew her weaknesses, she had known them the second she was born. The second her mother had died, giving her the life she had hoped to be able to be part of, to make her life better than it was. She knew she could trust no one, but herself. She knew that in life she, herself, was the only person she could fully trust. No one would help her through the bad parts in life.  
  
She had hope, she had those people she could count with one hand. She hoped that one day they might show her that she didn't need to be what her father had taught her to be.  
  
She knew deep down in her mind, that no one should be treated as worthless. She wasn't worthless, she had _never_ been worthless, and never in her life will she be.


End file.
